One of the two first female Rangers is from Texas

After weeks of rigorous training, 96 people are set to graduate today from the Army’s Ranger School, widely considered one of the Army’s most difficult training programs.

In this April 26, 2015, photo, 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, one of the 20 female soldiers, who is among the 400 students who qualified to start Ranger School, tackles the Darby Queen obstacle course, one of the toughest obstacle courses in U.S. Army training, at Fort Benning, in Ga. Haver and Capt. Kristen Griest are the first women to complete the U.S. Army’s grueling Ranger School and were scheduled to graduate Friday, Aug. 21, alongside 94 male soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., families of the soldiers confirmed Wednesday. (Robin Trimarchi/Ledger-Enquirer via AP)

Two of those 96 are women, the first female graduates of the school, and one of those two women is a Texan.

1st Lt. Shaye Haver of Copperas Cove, and Capt. Kristen Griest of Orange, Connecticut, made their first public appearances Thursday ahead of their Friday graduation.

“These two soldiers have absolutely earned the respect of every Ranger instructor,” Command Sgt. Major Curtis Arnold told reporters on Thursday in Fort Benning, Ga. “They do not quit and they do not complain.”

Haver and Griest became the first women to finish the famously difficult Ranger course after the school became gender-integrated this last spring.

364 soldiers, including 19 women, started the course that began in April.

Second Lt. Zachary Hanger, who attested to how both Haver and Griest would jump in to help carry heavy loads when other male trainees were too fatigued to assist at Thursday’s press conference in Fort Benning, called the women “absolutely physical studs.”

Despite their completion of the rigorous course, something only about 3 percent of Army soldiers accomplish, according to the Associated Press, Army rules still prohibit women from combat.

Those might rules change as soon as this fall, according to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who said Thursday he will decide by December to open combat positions to qualified women, like Griest and Haver.